Lois Lowry, author of young adult favorite The Giver, was one of several big-name writers at the National Book Festival.
The young boy was trapped. Exasperated and shaking, he eagerly clutched his copy of Jerry Spinelli’s latest book, Third Grade Angels. He was stuck in line with his mom and sister to meet Kathleen Ernst, creator of the popular American Girl series, but he wanted none of that.
“Moooommmmm,” he said, straddling the line between cute and whiny. Pointing to his book, he asked, “When am I gonna get to go in MY LINE?”
His mother reassured him they would get in line for Jerry Spinelli right when this one was done. The giddy boy’s face lit up.
He was just one of many children who spent a day or two on the National Mall with their families to celebrate reading at this weekend’s National Book Festival. And Spinelli, whose unique stories about oddballs like Maniac Magee and Loser were required middle school reading for many in our generation, was one of the many big-name writers who spoke and signed books at the event.
For those who think the youth of today are all lazy, video game-obsessed kids who are always in front of a computer screen, spending Saturday on the Mall was a nice wake-up call that love for good old-fashioned reading has not gone away.
The festival was far from a family-only affair, as adult authors such as Patricia Cornwell, Stephen L. Carter and Junot Díaz were all present to speak and interact with fans. But as a 20-year-old college student only 10 years or so removed from my middle school days, it was impossible not to let the inner child in me lead the way and decide which authors to see.
Would I rather see Pulitzer Prize-winning Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis, or Magic Tree House creator Mary Pope Osborne? A real historian, or the woman who taught millions of children history through twists, turns and time travel? There was no question — I joined the crowd of 8-year-olds at Osborne’s tent.
Because of this desire to see my childhood heroes in person, the day became a nostalgia trip, as I floated between tents to catch presentations from three of my favorite writers growing up.
“Ideas come from all kinds of places, and the best place of course is your own imagination.” – Lois Lowry
Lois Lowry, author of The Giver, started the day with a talk about her lifelong desire to be a writer. “I never wanted to be anything else,” she told an 8-year-old girl, one of many brave young souls who lined up behind a microphone to ask the writer a question. While Lowry explained she initially sacrificed her desire to become an author by dropping out of college at 19 — and then having children at ages 21, 22, 24 and 25 — she eventually was able to finish her English degree and pursue writing as a career.
“I don’t believe in writer’s block.” – Mary Pope Osborne
Those words shouldn’t be shocking from an author who has cranked out 48 Magic Tree House books since she started writing them 20 years ago — or, before this year’s freshmen were born. She was incredibly open about her writing process: using time travel as a vehicle, she writes about whatever topic she finds interesting (most recently, pandas). Osborne writes the series in four-book arcs, with mysteries lingering and resolved at the end of each.
And, most interestingly, she is always crowd-sourcing kids for new ideas. Osborne polled the audience to decide what her next book would be about — Catherine the Great, World Cup soccer, or hippos? The audience gave her a reality check, as she realized her Catherine the Great idea wasn’t so popular, but World Cup soccer definitely was. A story about hippos, she decided, may turn up in a later book. She had come up with a title, but nothing else: Hippos on Holiday.
“I don’t know what that means or where to go with it,” she said, in a revealing moment — could it be that she comes up with her alliterative titles (such as Dinosaurs Before Dark and Night of the Ninjas) before the actual stories? The kids certainly didn’t seem to care.
“The extent to which we fail leads to our successes.” – Jerry Spinelli
Jerry Spinelli doesn’t sugarcoat anything. His books feature complex, unique and often troubled characters. When he spoke, he talked primarily about failure.
He detailed his experiences with rejection, from a pretty girl in first grade rejecting his proposal to “marry him” in class to an array of publishing companies rejecting his first four books.
Spinelli’s stories were sad and told with a dark streak of humor, but they led to an inspirational message about the power of failure to create success.
“You should not be afraid to fail,” he said. “Failure will provide the stepping stones by which you will cross the creek.”
When one girl asked why so many of the characters Spinelli created were oddballs, he had an interesting answer. “You got 100 people – 99 of them are running this way,” he said, pointing to his left, “One of them is running that way,” pointing to the right. “Who would you rather read about?”
“This is the best organized, most joyous festival an author could ever attend.” – Mary Pope Osborne
The weather was glorious, the volunteers were cheery, and the tent speaker times stuck to the schedules that were handed out. A free, beautifully designed event poster was given to anyone who wanted it. And there were too many authors to count – while I saw Lowry, Spinelli, and Osborne, I missed out on Walter Dean Myers and R.L. Stine. Saturday at the National Book Festival was certainly a day that lived up to Osborne’s lofty declaration.
offitzer@umdbk.com
